Research On The Compensation For Secondary Victim's Spiritual Damage

With the improvement of people's living standard and awareness of rights protection,the one-to-one social mode has been replaced to multi-structure in the context of social transformation.Accordingly,it's embodied by the expansion of rights subject and content in tort law.People not only pay attention to the protection of their material property,but also to the peace of inner spiritual world.At the same time,in addition to primary victims are able to take legal weapon to protect their rights,secondary victims have begun to guard themselves legally.In fact,related cases existed as early as the 19th century abroad.The relevant legal thinking appeared and was improved in the following 20th century.Nations of Continental Law System and Anglo-American Law System have different ways in dealing with the secondary victims' spiritual damage:taking Germany as a typical,the former is used to solving the case in the mode of mental health impairment,but the latter allows secondary victims to sue for the spiritual damage alone.Meanwhile,Anglo-American countries set several conditions to limit the rights subject,such as"Zone of Danger" and "Reasonable Foreseeable".Regretfully,the legislation system of secondary victims' spiritual damage compensation has not been established in our country.There are only few records about the rights of close relatives of the deceased,legal dependents and guardians in special circumstances.Therefore,judges have to make judgments according to the expanding interpretation and discretion,leading to obvious disadvantages.In view of the present domestic legislation,there exist many problems like fragmented system,single rights object and subject,indistinct severe spiritual damage and so on.Based on the basic theories of secondary victims and compensation law for spiritual damage,this paper offers several practical suggestions with reference to overseas experiences and national conditions.It's time to establish a unified legislative system,widen the rights content and subjects,and define the limits clearly.All in all,this paper is intended to contribute to the Tort Law and domestic legal construction of secondary victims' spiritual damages compensation.